Amazon Kindle, UK

Saturday, 4 May 2013

May 4th in Queer History

Born this day

Lincoln Kirstein(1907 - 1996 ) US

Writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cultural figure in New York City. According to the New York Times, he was "an expert in many fields." He had a large circle of friends who stimulated creativity in many of the arts, and numerous sexual relationships with men, from casual encounters to longer relationships. He was the primary patron of the homoerotic artist Paul Cadmus, and after he married Cadmus' sister, Fidelma, some of his boyfriends lived with them.

Benno Premsela(1920 – 1997) Dutch
Interior designer, who was a pioneer activist in the cause of gay emancipation. He was one of the first people in the Netherlands to come out publicly, and as early as 1947 was speaking out for equality. In 1964 he was the first homosexual to appear on Dutch television without having his features distorted. From 1962 to 1971 he chaired the gay rights group COC, and in 1995 he was given the prestigious Silver Carnation award, for his contribution to both arts administration and gay emancipation.

Keith Haring (1958 - 1990 ) US
Artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.

Mark Leduc(1962 – 2009) Canadian
Boxer, who won a silver medal at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics. After retiring, Leduc came out as gay in 1994 in the TV documentary "For the Love of the Game", one of the few boxers ever to do so. He also spoke about being a gay athlete in CBC Radio's documentary "The Last Closet" and spent time talking to gay youth. He attended Toronto’s Pride Parade in 1999 as grand marshal (with Savoy Howe). Leduc worked for and volunteered with the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation, later becoming a set-builder and construction worker in the film industry.
Bent Hoie(1971 –)Norwegian
Politician representing the Conservative Party in the Storting (parliament),first elected in 2001. Alison Duncan(1975 – ) US
Politician, who ran for Lieutenant Governor of New York on the Green Party line in 2006. Lance Bass(1979 – )US

Pop singer, dancer, actor, film and television producer, and author. After he revealed that he is gay in a cover story for People magazine, he was awarded the Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award in October 2006.

Died this day

Sir Osbert Sitwell(1892 – 1969) UK.
English writer,the brother of Dame Edith Sitwell and Sir Sacheverell Sitwell, who first began to write poetry while serving in the trenches during the First World War.

Jane Bowles (1917 – 1973) US
Author / Playwright, who married the writer Paul Bowles. It was an unconventional marriage: their intimate relationships were with people of their own sex, but they maintained close ties to each other

Ray McDonald(1944 – 1993) US AmericanProfessional American football player, a running back in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins for two seasons, from 1967-68. In 1968, he was arrested by Washington, D.C. police for having sex with a man in public. Injuries also played a part in cutting short his career and by 1969 he was out of pro football. He died of complications due to AIDS in 1993.Lt. Col. Alois Estermann ( 1944/5 -1998), VaticanCityLance Coporal Cedric Tornay(1964/5 - 1998), Vatican CityA Swiss Guard in the Vatican, Estermann and his Venezuelan wife, Gladys Meza Romero, were murdered by Tornay, Estermann's subordinate in the Guards. Estermann and Tornay are believed to have been in a gay relationship.Ed Gallagher(?– 2005) US American
American college football player, who attempted to commit suicide, as he attempted to grapple with his sexuality, just 12 days after his first sexual encounter with a man. He survived but was left a paraplegic, and went on to become an author and speak out publicly about disabilities and homosexuality.

Ignace van Swieten(1943 – 2005) Dutch

Football referee, who was named Dutch Referee of the Year in 1984. He was the first professional football referee to come out as gay.

Sodomy in history, May 4th

May 4

1497 — A revolt against religious leader Savanarola in Venice, who has been a leader against sodomy, leads one man to say, "Thank God, now we can sodomize again."

1805 — Louisiana outlaws sodomy with a compulsory sentence of life imprisonment at hard labor.

1885 — Ohio outlaws sodomy with a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. There is evidence that the bill was introduced solely as a political ploy to embarrass the Governor, hinted by an opposition newspaper of being Gay.

1886 — An Ohio appellate court rules that, under the state’s 1885 sodomy law, indictments must be specific and, in dictum, that sodomy can be accomplished only if at least one party is a male person. This frees Lesbians from prosecution.

1943 — Puerto Rico changes its sodomy penalty from a minimum of 5 years to a penalty of 1-10 years.

1949 — Hawaii amends its disorderly conduct law to include "soliciting men for the purpose of committing a crime against nature or other lewdness.

1959 — A California appellate court overturns the oral copulation conviction of a man, rejecting every single one of 20 pieces of "corroborating" evidence.

1962 — The Delaware Supreme Court upholds the right of trial courts to ignore the statutory ban on probation for sodomy.

1972 — Rhode Island enacts a law permitting compensation for anyone killed or injured by the "crime against nature."